Foundry flask



Jan. 22, 1957 l. c. YOUNG 2,778,078

FOUNDRY FLASK Filed Jan. 4, 1952 United States FOUNDRY FLASK Lester C. Young, Cleveland, Ohio, assignor to Spo, Inc., a corporation of Ohio Application January 4, 1952, Serial No. 264,967

3 Claims. (CI. 22-96) This invention relates in general to foundry equipment, and relates more specifically to a foundry flask construction.

An object of this invention is to provide an improved foundry flask having continuous rail surfaces to ride a roller conveyor.

Another object of this invention is to provide a flask with vertically spaced rail members for transferring said mold from foundation support to hanging support or vice versa.

Other objects and a fuller understanding of the invention may be had by referring to the following description and claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:

Figure 1 is a top view of a flask embodying the improved features of this invention;

Figure 2 is a side elevational view of the flask; and

Figure 3 is an illustration of the transferability of my improved flask from one conveyor to another.

The flask of this invention is basically similar to foundry flasks in that a cope and drag are employed and secured together in vertical alignment in any suitable manner. Beyond this similarity the flask of this invention differs quite extensively from standard flasks.

Insofar as this invention is concerned the copes and drags are identical, and accordingly no differentiation is made in the following description. Actually the drag is equipped with a sand grid formed by a plurality of cross bars 25, and a stub pin guide is mounted to cooperate with matching bushings on the cope. However, these features are old and well known in the industry and are not set forth as a part of the present invention.

In the drawing the reference character It) indicates an annular wall forming the sides of the mold section. The wall consists of end walls 11 and side walls 12. As best shown in Figure 2 of the drawings, the annular wall 10 is convex with respect to the interior of the flask, and provides a sand-locking feature which prevents accidental slippage of the compacted sand out of the mold member. Heretofore flanges of various types have been employed to hold the sand from slipping. Such flanges have the disadvantage of being diflicult to clean, and small lumps of hard sand will cling to the flanges and are quite likely to drop on to the pattern as the flask is being positioned thereon. These small lumps have ofen fallen into the pattern and become located against the face of some portion of the pattern and thereby prevents the new sand from forming an accurate impression. The bulged nature of the walls of my improved flask allow the compacted sand to wedge into the flask section but have no tendency to hold bits of sand after the mold has been shaken out.

Modern foundry practice includes conveyor systems for moving flasks about the foundry. There have recently been developed mold making machines for filling the flask members and form the mold cavity therein. However, the flask members have not been improved correspondingly the same flasks are generally used in a modern 2,778,078 Patented Jan. 22, 1957 conveyor foundry as have been used for many years. Usually roller conveyors are installed and the flasks simply roll along the surface of the many rollers.

My improved flask construction is adapted for use with roller bearing type conveyor systems wherein individual stub rollers are mounted in parallel relationship on opposite sides of the conveyor. There need be no rollers extending completely across the conveyor. Each flask member is provided with a top flange 15 and a bottom flange 16. The top flange 15 has top and bottom surfaces 18 and 19, with the surface 18 thereof finished to serve as a longitudinal rail. At least the bottom surface of flange 16 is machined to serve as a rail surface. This surface is indicated by reference character 17. Roller face 17 extends in a path which is parallel with the plane of the mating joint between the cope and drag.

When used in a modern foundry, the flask parts are conveyed in one position over part of their journey through the mold-making process, and are rolled over during another part of the journey. Somewhere in the process the cope is united with the drag to form the two halves of a mold cavity. The rail surface 17 therefore will conduct the flask member along when positioned with the surface 17 downwardly, and the surface 19 will support the flask when inverted.

The arrangement of the rail surfaces 17 and 18 form the very desirable function of transferring the flask part from a foundation type of support wherein the flask rolls upon a conveyor to a hanging support. In Figure 3 of the drawing the end of a conveyor section 26 and the beginning of a conveyor section 27 are illustrated with a flask transferring from section 26 to section 27 or vice versa. The conveyor section 27 may or may not be a movable section such for example as an elevator. This transfer of support is useful in modern mold-making machinery wherein the section 26 represents the end of an automatic mold-making machine and the mold is thereby picked up and placed upon a drag flask made by another automatic machine. To close such a combination the cope must be suspended rather than supported. My improved flask will permit the rapid and automatic transfer of support in order to facilitate the closing of a cope upon a drag.

In addition to the features thus far described, my im proved flask employs two bumper bars 21 to accurately space a series of such flasks upon a conveyor. A pusher pad 22 serves to receive a ram of indexing mechanisms used in machine mold production, and by accurately controlling the movement of the ram, the flask can be accurately positioned because the bumper pads 22 are each machined to present a bumper surface spaced in an exact distance from the center line of the flask.

Although the invention has been described in its preferred form with a certain degree of particularity, it is understood that the present disclosure of the preferred form has been made only by way of example and that numerous changes in the details of construction and the combination and arrangement of parts may be resorted to without departing from the spirit and the scope of the invention as hereinafter claimed.

What is claimed is:

l. A foundry flask comprising, a section including an annular retainer wall composed of two opposing end walls and two opposing side walls, said annular retainer wall having a top edge and a bottom edge, each said end wall having a first flange extending laterally outwardly therefrom in the region of said top edge, said first flange having a bottom rail surface to suspend said section from above, a second flange extending laterally outwardly from each end wall in the region of said bottom edge, said second flange having a bottom rail surface upon which said section is supported from beneath, each said side wall having bumper pad means extending laterally therefrom a predetermined distance to abut adjacent pad means of adjacent sections, whereby a series of said flasks may be accurately spaced in side by side relationship and be moved upon said flanges upon a roller conveyor by said abutment of said pad means when one section is moved against another section.

2. A foundry flask comprising, an annular retainer wall composed of two opposing end walls and two opposing side walls, said annular wall having a sand locking concave configuration with respect to the interior of the flask, said annular retainer wall having a top edge and a bottom edge, each said end Wall having a first flange extending laterally therefrom in the region of said top edge, said first flange having a bottom rail surface, a second flange extending laterally from each end wall in the region of said bottom edge, said second flange having a bottom rail surface, each said side Wall having bumper pad means extending laterally therefrom a predetermined distance, whereby a series of said flasks may be accurately spaced in side by side relationship upon a roller conveyor.

3. The combination with a foundry flask composed of cope and drag sections, each section including opposed end walls, each said end Wall having first and second parallel flanges extending laterally outwardly therefrom, said first flanges having bottom rail surfaces to suspend a section as a cope, said first flanges having top rail surfaces upon which said section is supported when inverted, said second outwardly extending flanges having bottom rail surfaces to support said section; of upper and lower roller conveyors having individual rollers mounted on opposite sides of each conveyor, said conveyors being positionable with an end of one above an end of the other and with the rollers of one conveyor arranged substantially in the plane of said first outwardly extending flanges of a flash section supported thereon and with the rollers of said other conveyor arranged substantially in the plane of said second outwardly extending flanges whereby a flask section having its first flanges supported upon the rollers of one of said conveyors is movable in a rectilinear path therefrom onto the rollers of said other conveyor to be supported thereon by said second flanges of said flask section, and whereby a flask section having its second flanges supported upon the rollers of one of said conveyors is movable in a rectilinear path therefrom onto the rollers of said other conveyor to be suspended therefrom by said second flanges of said flask section.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 580,205 Barnett Apr. 6, 1897 1,337,268 Prince Apr. 20, 1920 1,467,347 White Sept. 11, 1923 1,855,521 Kunert Apr. 26, 1932 1,911,542 Wurster May 30, 1933 2,127,204 Campbell Aug. 16, 1938 2,197,212 Hagemeyer Apr. 16, 1940 2,334,511 Seubert Nov. 16, 1943 2,542,243 Gedris Feb. 20, 1951 

